Pages

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

Editor's Note: After writing this I realised the article was abit of a downer so I put in some nice Christmas themed pictured to take the edge off. This is a Christmas tree one.

So Christmas has come again. All the decorations, arbitrary
present selection, suffocating crowds at the mall, incessant whirring of Band
Aid, ‘Driving home for Christmas’ and every other terrible song that could only
ever manage to become successful at Christmas time when the population are too
full of turkey and false alcohol induced cheer to care about a single thing
they buy. And Michael Buble. Alot of Michael Buble. So was it all worth it yet
again? Yet again, I’m not so sure.

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

For those who aren’t lucky enough to have played the
delightful AGoT2e: A Dance with Dragons expansion, especially those who are
allergic to spoilers and have only watched the TV show, this is a custom
scenario to add some flavour to your game of thrones experience.It’s nowhere near as good as the vanilla
game, but having played vanilla a lot, I think it presents players who know the
factions well with a different way of harnessing their unique abilities.

Saturday, 15 December 2012

Because what has been widely perceived to be one of the films of the year came out this week, The Hobbit, the Internet has suddenly found itself inundated with trailers that have been stuck on the beginning of the must see film (Of which I will get around to reviewing at some point before I leave) and I've decided to go through a few of them.

First of all, so everyone doesn't run away, here is your precious Man of Steel trailer. Now, because I have the (mis)fortune to live in Britain, I didn't get to view that lovely new trailer in the cinema, my Hobbit screening had the old boring, washing powder-esque advert. But thankfully the Internet has once more stepped in to save the day. Now, as a comic reader, the idea of enduring yet another Superman origin story seems slightly unnecessary/ I appreciate however, that in the public eye, Superman has been off of the big screen for quite a while, and this trailer seems to be the first proof I have seen that an origin story of the world's most famous superhero might actually be a good thing.

Thursday, 13 December 2012

On the 7th of July, 2011, our very own Cynic Harvey (Billy Bob) said this about Cat and the Coup on the Steam Recommendations page.

"It's got all the mystery of Midsummer Murders, the beauty of Jo Brand, and the gamplay of Kaplunk". Now, ignoring the fact he misspelled "kerplunk" and "gameplay", and I haven't noticed for the year and a half I have been laughing at that, this is pretty apt. If you aren't British and have no idea what any of those things are...I envy you. Onto the review!

Yep, three buttons, Arrow Keys and Space, this thing could be played on a Gameboy

So yes, the reason I am making a Cat and the Coup review is because, from what I have seen, no-one has bothered. And I completely understand why. The Cat and the Coup is a free to play game on Steam, I believe it was the First Free to Play Game on Steam, it is also made seemingly entirely with University/academic scholarship. It is a game designed to explain a specific part of history, the fall of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. In this sense it is a success. However I assume it was designed to be fun. In this sense it is a failure. Allow me to explain.

Friday, 7 December 2012

Much like other theoretical fields, the What About Cynics Board Game is hard to define, hard to explain, and no-one is quite sure whether it actually exists. Allow me to explain, a few days ago, while I was checking in on the site in between writing one of several million essays I am currently doing, I noticed some odd search terms had appeared. One read "Board Game by What About Cynics webcomic creators" and the other read "What About Cynics Board Game", I can only assume they were both from the same mad person. I originally laughed and dismissed it...But then another two appeared, and so I figured what better joke article to write at 1 o'clock in the morning after I have just finished my essay on Reaganomics, and dauntingly look forward to starting one about Danish Diplomatic history in the 1800s tomorrow...God.

So, yeah, that is why I have been quite quiet recently, but do not worry, after the 13th, everything shall pick up quite nicely.

So I just inadvertently posted What About Cynics first working gif, and it is from Hetalia. I take this as a net gain for our fair society. But yeah, fittingly enough that is England, though I'm not having a crisis about if I'm Protestant or Catholic, I'm having one about essays or honourable seppuku.

Saturday, 24 November 2012

Well here it is, I've been waiting for
it, the world's been waiting for it, and there's even one sick
individual who's been waiting for my review of it, but it's all here
anyway. Coldplay's first issue, or issue zero, or the prequel to what
will become the Mylo Xyloto comic series. Never has a worse idea,
with a stranger creative team behind it ever been put forward to my
recollection, but I have been so excited about this, mostly for it's
potential god awfulness, that I haven't been able to sleep since this
was announced.

The only issue of what I assume was the
first early issues given at comic con this year are from Coldplay's
Hurts Like Heaven music video, of which the video was the entire
first issue of Mylo Xyloto. I have to say that whatever I thought
this was going to be, namely bad and like it was written by a 12 year
old, has been almost completely exceeded. So I've got some screen
grabs of the thing, although I'm not certain about copyright or how legal this is, and we'll run through the key moments of this
opening issue to check out why I think it's a little bit crappy.

Thursday, 22 November 2012

Hello Cynics! (It is still weird to think I'm addressing actual people now, but, for whatever reason, you keep coming back, so you get your own demonym, if that is the correct word for it). This is going to be an amalgamation of things, it is going to be part civic update, but because it would be cheap to make just an article out of that, it'll also have elements of my video update (here) where I discussed relevant videos (warning, may not be so relevant this time around), and also of the various news bursts I've been doing over the past two weeks.

I genuinely have no idea what to put here for the picture, so have a picture of the Game of Thrones Mod for Crusader Kings 2 loading screen. Yep, a picture, taken by digital camera, of a loading screen...Keep reading. Please?

So first things first, update. The reason for tonight's article is primarily this, I am currently in educational limbo, I just finished one quite large essay, and I'm giving myself a night off before I start tomorrow's large essay. My fellow cynics are also at university as you may or may not know, and I assume a combination of work and apathy are behind their slowed down output.

Either way, I'm using this brief point of spare time at 1 o'clock on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning to inform you of stuff I have in the works.Updates

The mythical t-shirt. Of which, is currently been planned, sketched and scanned, currently in the process of drawing and adding humour, those who've expressed interest, thank you for your continued patience with our casual operation.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

I love GTA, oh how I love it so. Ever since the tender age
of 10 or so when I beat my first old lady to death with a bat, continuing on
well into her death as the blood continued to paint the pavement in crimson red
success around her, I knew I had a new favorite game. A Crash Bandicoot beater
that fully deserved the title.

Now I’m just going to say for the record that Vice City is
my favorite GTA and I found GTA IV relatively lackluster and pretty dull
overall, although clearly very well made. Basically I saw the trailer to GTA V and then heard some rumors and what may or may not be official news and then based on what’s being lauded about the game e.g it’s size and multiple
characters, I had a few fears that I wanted to vent about how I think GTA’s
gotten quite drastically stale since San Andreas and a few of my concerns as to
the potential ways in which the direction they’re taking the game may not help
this fact.

Monday, 12 November 2012

So as I was writing my Argo review in a desperate attempt to get it out before the film ceases to be relevant even here and I'm forced to profiteer off of it only when DVD sales come out, fate intervened and saw fit to show me a news article from British Tabloid Newspaper, the Express. So here is my second delve into the world of Star Wars Episode VII-IX.

This is my new favourite image from the Disney/Lucas Film Star Wars buy out. Because let us be frank people, this is more feasible, and more terrifying than any Darth Vader costume with Mouse ears.

But even Zach and Cody's Suite Life on Death Star isn't likely. Just as "I'm in the Rebellion" and "Aaron Star" also probably won't be coming around. This, frankly hilarious if true, article detailing the Return of Darth Vader has forced me to throw my hat into the already bursting arena of Star Wars Episode VII speculation and strife. Now, just before we begin, let me set the record straight, I don't think Darth Vader is coming back physically. It is wholly possible he could 'return' spiritually, we already know he can do the blue force ghost thing...That fucking Qui-Gon Jinn apparently invented!

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Some on the spot Blogging from my all-nighter for the US 2012 Presidential Election. Kept on here for the sake of posterity to remind you all what an amazing night it was, and for me to laugh at how panicked I was trying to type down stuff from three different news channels and still blog/teamspeak. A good night 9/101:45 GMT: Updated and Edited throughout the Night

I think just enough time has passed, just enough has been said, and just enough of the obvious states have been called in. Roughly, depending on who you believe from the three TV coverages I'm watching simultaneously, Fox, CNN and BBC that it exists around about 77 Obama 76 Romney, obviously it is all Statistics at this point. All I will say is.God I hope Obama wins...That'll be the theme of my writing.

Fuck, so like, Romney saying he has already written his Victory speech was intoxicating. But yeah, no mjaor surprises so far. Inevitably, all the swing-states are taking ages to announce their results, and so quite a lot of the tense stuff is going to be happening later. Florida is currently slightly Obama, same with Ohio. Alabama just inevitably went Romney. NC and Virginia are drawing, with slight favourite towards Romney. Annoying no major shocks. The best thing so far is that Florida is going closer and closer to Obama. Though I just saw the latest Virginia poll, 55% Romney. Then again, Ohio is 57% Obama currently.

So much information is coming in right now, I'm going to cut my losses and just publish this. I'm glad New Jersey wasn't effected too badly by the Sandy storm, and still voted Obama. Can't wait for the swing states, until then I'll accept some Population Centers please? I'll be writing more of these Micro Articles throughout the night. 78-76 BBC. 64-82. CNN. Obama-Romney.

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

So as I speak (type) the day is ticking over from the 5th of November to the 6th, and as I really hope you are aware, that is American Election Day. All that really fun political campaigning, the constant Daily Show watching, endless articles, soon it will all be for nothing as the American populous get a task of utmost important, electing the new leader of the 'free world'. In honour of this I thought I would upload the Campaign I did recently on the Political Machine, unfortunately I don't have time to do a Romney/Obama one and write it up before the results, so you'll have to do with this wacky Scenario, Teddy Roosevelt Vs Al Gore!.

While, due to not having either candidate from the current election, this turned out to be less relevant and consequently, probably less funny, I hope you enjoy. Failing that, go read the 'critically acclaimed' first Campaign I did of this game, Obama vs Michelle Bachmann (Aka, Easy Mode) for some brutal attacks on all your favourite American Politicians. (Also, yeesh, talk about TL;DR, go to the bottom for the funny stuff as well).

Maybe after the election I will do who I want the candidates for 2016 to be...

Sunday, 4 November 2012

So after a behind the scenes preview posted a long time ago, and a lot of changes from what it was originally going to be like it, here we have the 6 factions of the Game of Thrones Board Game, personified by us and our friends. A fairly nerdy project, but so is the entire of What About Cynics, and it is working out great. I implore you to click for the full picture, it is really quite something my staff (singular) put together, I may just post each of them separately as well.

We originally planned to make a humour set of webcomics out of these character, as Simon's Game of Thrones Articles are our most successful and widely viewed. I'm not sure if that is still going ahead, as we have plans for a story-line in the webcomic coming up soon, but it is definitely on the cards.

With the release of the new WB show: Arrow, focusing on the exploits of Green Arrow, I thought now was an ideal time to post an old blog article about my reviews, roughly a year ago, about Green Arrow in the new line of Comic books. For Comic Details

Also, looking back my writing has improved dramatically.For similar fun look Here, Here and Here. How is that for plugging?

Now out of the New 52, the first to reach third issue purchased was Green Arrow, now this might have been due to some unfair reasons, such as release date, but for the purpose of this article, we are going to ignore that and say it is primarily my love of Green Arrow! Okay? Okay...

So I love Green Arrow, I love his silly themed arrows, I love his Robin Hood riff, I love the evolution of the character, his relationship with other figures, especially Batman, Hal Jordan and Black Canary, the socialism he picked up along the way, his one arm, his two arms. He, to me, is a perfect example of how a great character doesn't explode into popularity, but steadily builds it up.

Give me a chance here...Let me explain to you why you should watch this film. I normally don't go for this approach, but I think it is needed. (Wow, this turned into a long review, wonder if anyone else wrote this much about Hotel Transylvania...Yeesh)

Reviewing Hotel Transylvania was always going to be significantly harder than reviewing say, the Bond Film Skyfall. The reasons for this are two fold, Numero uno, Hotel Transylvania lacks prestige, this will be self evident by the fact that this review will get significantly less traffic than say the aforementioned Skyfall, and it has to prove it's existence. No-one questions me if I say "I liked Skyfall", for some reason Bond has the natural right to exist, irrespective of bankrupting an entire film company. But Hotel Transylvania doesn't help itself, I've seen it advertised as 'From the studio that brought you...The Smurfs"...Yes, the bloody smurfs. I told my fellow Cynic Simon that I enjoyed this film, and he wasn't sure if I was being sarcastic. Christ, this is going to be an uphill battle

The second reason is that this is a Family Film, or, if you are going to be trite about it, a kids film. But as someone who watches what can either be described as an astounding, or a sad amounts of youth targeted media, even into what has now become my 20s (20 folks, not quite gone yet), I get frankly annoyed at the dismissive nature of people towards these films. I mean, don't get me wrong, some of them are over simplified messes, but every genre has it's bad films. It is when someone does not want to watch something, regardless of the talent going into it. Which is why my first section will regard just that, the talent.

Saturday, 3 November 2012

So while researching near the end of this review, I stumbled across this video. A little bit more research later and it turns out that BandaiNamco are making another Digimon RPG. Now, while Digimon hasn't quite kept up the limelight in the west as much as it's pocket sized cousins, in Japan, it is still big business. But the thing that distinguishes this RPG from any other one, is, as you can tell, it is based around the beloved Dubbed Children's TV series I certainly grew up with, and I know many of my peers did. That is fucking cool.

Regrettably however, Japan has basically written off the Western markets as somewhere to peddle their PSP based Digimon-wares, which is unfortunate, because of they had someone of the generation now aged 19-22, they could probably tell BandaiNamco, that this would sell like bloody hotcakes. Like, literally, people would buy PSP's for this thing. Now unfortunately, I can't effect it, I haven't seen any sort of 'probably not going to work' petition, just a bunch of whiny people complaining it isn't coming to the west (of which, yes, I'm aware I have added my voice), but hell, I've got a website now, so I get to complain about stuff I want to come out, and more importantly, I get to increase awareness, as if it hadn't been for a lucky google search, I wouldn't have known this existed, so here we go...Making it even more unlikely is the PSP aspect, Digimon games get released rarely as it is, but on top of the 'less than stellar performance' of the PSP, makes this virtually hopeless.

So I just got back from what will probably be a fortnightly feature of me going to the cinema and plowing through a few films. As it was half term this week and the kids were off, then I cut it to just two films this time. The first is Skyfall, then after that I will take great joy in reviewing GenndyTartakovsky's Hotel Transylvania so stay tuned.

(My less Cynical-Cynic, Simon has also written his own counter review highlighting the good parts of this film, as apparently I mostly focus on the bad and don't mention the stuff I liked...Who knew?)

If you want to skip my analysis of the Bond Franchise and a rant on Product Placement, scroll down and look for the words Actual Review:

First off, my beef with the Bond Franchise.

The James Bond Films are a strange subject, some would describe him as quintessentially British, an embodiment almost, others would say he is the perfect agent. The thing is, that in his 50 year (as we are painfully reminded) career, both Britain and espionage has changed considerably. This will probably sound quite harsh, but Bond, at his core, is jingoistic, misogynistic and chauvinist(in both senses), he is a rampant alcoholic, makes jokes at the violent deaths of others, and lets his chronic womanizing frequently endanger his mission and cloud his judgement. While some of these merely come with the territory of being an action hero, and to nitpick them would be time ill-spent, others are slightly more complex.

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

That title says it all, in 2015 we will be getting a new Star Wars film, but this will not just be another George Lucas milking of the franchise, we have a new farmer my friends...We have...Disney?! No, this is not April the 1st.

Both of these faces are now owned by Disney, now sit down and tell me how that makes you feel.

Obviously this raises about a 100 questions in the minds of absolutely everyone.

1. Is my childhood doomed?

Yes, it is very possible, equally however, under the leadership of Disney, Marvel has produced the Avengers, arguably one of the most Nerd-friendly movies, and highest grossing in ages. So possibly not.

Sunday, 28 October 2012

So snap, I just got back from watching a ton of stuff, but the one thing that sticks out in my mind is the fine piece of anime that was witnessed, and that is Summer Wars. Now, before we get into this, I know very little about the outside of Summer Wars, unlike when I usually watch and subsequently review a film. This is usually because I've either A) got the film on DVD, thus knowing about it anyway B) have chosen to spend good money in the cinema, implying research or C) google it half way through watching it on TV. But yesterday I found myself in a situation I'd rarely ever been in before, short of picking a movie at random because nothing is on at the cinema. I went to a University Society (The sci-fi one, incidentally) and was just shown a film. It was quite a nice feeling, and so I've decided to maintain that bubble and just review it without all the excess I usually fill reviews with. After that, we will see how good it is...Ok? Ok.

Monday, 22 October 2012

So I've grown to really like the screenshot playthrough review, to the extent I think I might be doing it too much. Though as both of my most popular articles on this site are screenshot playthrough reviews, I might just keep it up. So today I will be giving you a glimpse into my first attempt of playing "The Political Machine 2012". A fun Steam game that was so cheap I picked up 4 copies (Decadence, thy name is Aaron) just in case my friends wanted to play...Or, in all honesty, because I want to try and win the US 2012 Presidential election against one of my friends, and this is definitely the closest I'll get.

The Political Machine 2012 is the third in the Political Machine series by Stardock, predictably the last two were on 2004 and 2008, unfortunately 2000 was deemed ill suited to a game, as if you play as the Republicans, you can cheat...Oooh, long setup rim shot.

So I suppose I should actually post some screenshots. Here is your first glimpse into my campaign. It is week 1. I've decided to play Obama after I realised my prospects of winning with DR ATHEIST were astronomically low. The Obama War Machine has 4 Million dollars, soon to be used on strange headquarters. Obviously he starts off in Illinois, which is currently 56% Obama, 34% Romney. A solid start, I might just win one state, more than Ralph Nader ever did....I'll see myself out.

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Ok, so upon having re-read this twice whilst very tired, I've decided to keep it how it is. It isn't terrible, at points, pretty funny, at points, very cringy. There are probably a couple of spelling errors, but I advise you look over them, I was typing fast. I think its a perfect microcosm of the debate itself. We have me being low and making stuff up (Romney) and me not really trying (Obama). And we have me trying to work out why I am even here (Jim Lehrer). I don't recommend you read all of the spiel, I tried to highlight some of my favourites in bold, but keep in mind, I'm running on empty right now.Remember, it is rambling, basically stream of thought, others will state it much better than me, having thought about it for much longer than the few seconds before finger hit key DURING the debate. Also, remember I'm bias as hell. (It is also vain how every picture is a picture of my ugly face, ignore them if you will, filter them if you can).

It is quite interesting to note how sometimes I get it completely wrong, I've left those moments in because I quite like them. I was just trying to judge what I saw, in an admittedly retarded fashion, which I ask you to excuse. The political nerd in me got excited, and the wannabe comedian got eager. I went kind of crazy with fake quotes as well...

My very first screenshot, at the point of which you can actually take a screenshot, having successfully slapped a bitch to the floor, and proceeding to execute him. I'm pretty sure the game has, at most 5 executions that I've actually seen, and this is probably the most stupid, a kind of slamming your shield on their neck. Notice I'm the generic, really shit footman class.

Sunday, 7 October 2012

Every so often it seems to be a given that an organisation (and What About Cynics is an organisation in the very loosest use of the word) will write something on an important anniversary that is reflective, humble, and hopefully poignant. As no-one has ever been sure how long What About Cynics will last, then I feel now is an ideal time as any to get it out of the way for a while, that and up until 2 days ago, I had nothing to post. Now I found myself with a bloated Political Rambling and a screenshot filled rant at a contemporary game, which is the blogging equivalent of a gold mine.

So yes, 90 days (ish, damn you Romans) have passed since three plucky, depressive, apathetic got talking about my past failed blogging experience, and decided to try and make our own internet experiment. About now I should talk about how we dedicated ourselves to a high quality of work, like some cheesy supermarket chain, but really we just wrote what we pleased. Currently we have 62 published articles, 5 in draft. That works out over one every 2nd day, much higher than I originally thought. And the amount of views we have received have been beyond expectation, given that we aren't on any preexisting site and so can't be easily linked up like youtube or flickr, we've had to pry people out of their internet bubbles, as I write this the view'o'meter rests on 22,007, across 89 countriesIn the grand scale of the internet, not much, in the context of a small blog that has virtually nothing but writing, a 10 issue webcomic,an unpublished podcast, and several let's plays to its name, in the parlance of our times...Everything went better than expected.

Pictured, plucky depressives, it has been speculated that I was the only one playing video games.

Monday, 1 October 2012

Every so often, a moment of great serendipity occurs and someone (in this case myself) will be exposed to something (in this case Lead and Gold) that they wouldn't have otherwise witnessed. This cataclysmic event often culminates in the form of half baked articles on partially successful Internet blogs, and today you are reading just such a blog. For more hilarious screenshot based fun, look no further

About a year ago, I was on a massive cowboy binge in the most heterosexual way possible. I believe it was caused by playing Call of Juarez, which consequently made me play the 2nd Call of Juarez game, followed by a whole slew of shitty cowboy flash games, and a massive urge to buy Red Dead Redemption (ultimately resisted due to the lack of console at the time). As such, when a steam daily deal flashed up with a cowboy game, you can bet mouse buttons were clicked fast, and thus I came into the ownership of Lead and Gold - Gangs of the Wild West. A game made by the team behind War of the Roses, the soon to be realised historical multiplayer team game, and part of the season why I've chosen now to do this... postmortem.

Friday, 28 September 2012

This was an idea chucked around at the beginning of What About Cynics as a way to fill up a slot by posting other peoples content that we had found during our extensive time on the Internet. Now I found myself in a unique position where I have accumulated three Internet videos I want to (admittedly, very minimally) increase the exposure of, and give my two cents on. (Does that become two pence for the British?).

It was originally purposed that we would each select a video, but my colleagues are currently presumed dead, so you get my three choices. Starting with....

Sunday, 23 September 2012

Vague spoilers ahead. As I won't be naming all the cards, the only real spoilers here will be that the characters I name are still alive at this point (and sometimes when not necessary I will edit those out as well). Also, to appease those who don't want all the cards coming out at once, I will not be covering all of the cards in this article alone. I will be trying to keep it as spoiler-light as possible. For more stuff on the core AGoT 2nd Edition Board Game, start here. If there is any great interest in this, I will be making another one.

Oh man, even made the box art safe. Beautiful. But seriously, read those damn books. They are incredible.

As of yet I have not been able to assemble a full game of A Dance with Dragons, I put the majority of the blame on university starting back up here in England, and so my players have started to go walk about, travelling to the four corners of this United Kingdom but there is little I can do about that. So I decide to set the board game up with the new cards and positions, and see what I could ascertain from just kind of looking at it and the cards. So here is my, as spoiler free as possible review of the cool elements of ADwD.

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

“You just don't get it”. Damn the
person who invented this argument. It cuts as deep into a
conversation as a sharp ballpoint pen pushed harshly into soft white
paper, stabbing at any preceding sentence with its bitter finality.
It's a killer of conversations. It shares its place as cutting
statements with “I find that quite offensive”, “What? I'm not
pregnant” and “My husband actually died quite recently”. The
really grating thing about all these responses is that there's
nothing particularly wrong with any of them. They all have gravity
for a reason. The latter ones I now realize in my attempt to find any
sentences which can end a conversation in a funny and recognizable
way all have one problem, that they can only be spoken when you've
done something wrong in some way. You made a poor call of judgement.

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

IN CASE YOU HADN'T GUESSED, THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT PORN. THERE'S NO EXPLICIT IMAGES OR ANYTHING, ASIDE FROM SOME MILD SHOCK HUMOUR, BUT IF YOU ARE REALLY THAT PATHETIC TO EVEN HESITATE, THEN PLEASE VIEW WITH PRECAUTION

“The
test of civilization is its estimate of women”. George William
Curtis wrote this to describe the conditions of what makes a stable
civilisation. I think he's wrong. There is only one empirical fact
which correlates with a civilisation becoming more stable and that is
sadly the number of times people jack off a day. Cavemen were busy
hunting for food and surviving. There was a struggle and lack of
material and so inevitably masturbation was not on the top ten of
things to do in any given day. If anything it was stifling as the
desire to breed and pass on genes was far more important. Those who
did masturbate did so into decline, their genetic code wanked away
into oblivion. The Romans had a world to conquer, the peasants of
Medieval Britain had the plague and since that's the only history I
know I'll end this misinformed recount of civilisations through time.

During this article I will be attempting to clean up the internet using Paint and a little elbow grease. I hope you find these works both aesthetically and morally pleasing

Monday, 10 September 2012

After the mild success of the very unworthy first part of this series, which was mainly designed as a test, I've decided to do a fuller, more detailed humourous playthrough of everyone's favourite Game of Thrones mod.

This time I started playing as Jon Arryn, but quickly decided that trying to be the most power hungry Arryn was definitely the way to go. Find out how Old Man Mountain does in his decent into madness

Thursday, 6 September 2012

This isn’t necessarily a strict review of ‘Brave’. What it is for the most part is basically me using my own opinion as a springboard to get annoyed and confused at how everyone doesn’t agree with me, while going into numerous other subjects regarding Pixar’s film catalogue and it’s apparent diminishing quality in recent years, and ultimately leaving this whole article as a heavily biased and inevitably meaningless waste of time that only those who shared my opinion in the first place will like and so learn nothing. On that note then let’s blow this shit wide open.

Sunday, 2 September 2012

Here is a couple of images from our up coming webcomics on the A Game of Thrones Board Game, as such the characters of us are based upon the six house factions in the game, the adventures they embark upon shall be surmising hopefully the mishaps that appear whilst we play the Board Game.

Sunday, 26 August 2012

I was alerted only minutes ago to the existence of this movie by a single picture I shall post below this paragraph in a second. My utter disbelief to this picture was so severe that I believed it a hoax, that surely this movie has not been made, there is no way a studio would green-light that, and then I saw that damn trailer above.

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

And so passes another of the old British gaming studios, Studio Liverpool, more commonly known to me in my childhood, and other Sega console owners as Psygnosis, a word I wasn't sure how to say then, and will now probably never know. Though in recent years Studio Liverpool became increasingly specialised in the realms of churning out Wipeout and F1 games for Sony, for me, and I hope for many others, Psygnosis will be remembered, as it always should, be this.

While I'm not going to look back at Psygnosis more favourably than they deserve, it is safe to say my childhood would have been a very different experience had it not been for the games that Psygnosis made in its prime, and so I have scoured the internet this morning, collecting images from the games of my childhood, and games of note, to honour the once great, and half the time, not so great, studio.

Friday, 17 August 2012

I, like my two fellow blog mates, live in the UK, and as you may or may not be aware, there is trouble in the state of England. Julian Assange, who has remained in the UK whilst he appealed against extradition to Sweden for quite a few months now. The official line in all this, is that Mr Assange is wanted for the questioning in Sweden to do with some trumped up Sexual offence, which surprisingly only came to light after the wiki-leaks scandals. The UK, up until this point, had been acting in an officious way, and rightly so, preventing the calls by the US and Sweden for denied appeal and letting it run its course, they even granted him limited bail.

Whistle-blower, Cyber Terrorist, Bond Villain, people call him many things he is not, me and TLL.com just call him Mr. Humphries from are you being served.

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a massive open world action
packed RPG. It's massive, packed full of content and can give anyone
who plays it an overwhelming sense of scale and adventure as they
brave awe inspiring snow covered mountains and grand fertile valleys.
You can traverse the most decayed landscape or some of the most
beautiful and alive environments which I have ever experienced in a
game. It's reconnecting with nature, but without the effort of
actually going outside. It's stunning, it's long and it will become
addictive enough that even when you leave Skyrim for the outside,
you'll crave to be able to get back home and play it some more.

But, it's also exceptionally boring and
one of the most repetitious games that I've ever played, forcing me
to grind more than if I was a mule working in a mill forced to pull a
grindstone all day until I go lame and buckle under the futility of
it all. But obviously I can't stop playing. So what the hell is in
the water in Skyrim? On that note then let's jump randomly between
thoughts until we can pull a conclusion out of our asses.

Saturday, 11 August 2012

Over the past maybe 4 weeks, video gaming has posed to me a question that I don’t often have to ask myself, or maybe video gaming always poses me that question, but I just frequently choose to ignore it. However, for some reason I have been finding myself suspiciously drawn to the Steam pre-order deal of Sleeping Dogs. Now pre-ordering is something I wouldn’t expect a man who partakes in a website with cynics in the name to buy into, and I barely ever do; I’m fairly sure the last game I pre-ordered was Batman Arkham City, and before then is absolutely anyone’s guess, I have seriously no idea. So we can agree that pre-ordering is not a common hobby for me, it is a combination of a lack of faith that a game will be good, and also Steam ruining/improving me into thinking that the game will be half price within the year, so why bother.

Friday, 10 August 2012

The news is filled with terrible images
all the time. From burning woodland to acts of violence and raped
children, it can only bring you down. But out of all of these things,
it isn't the news that's the saddest thing occurring on TV between
the hours of 10 and 11, and whatever other times the news shows at.
To be honest I don't even watch the news, but where would a pointless
and ill informed internet blog be without misinformation.

So anyway, listen up, or read more
strained, or whatever the equivalent is. Let's get to the crux of
this set-up.

Saturday, 4 August 2012

Another oneshot this week, like the Batman one, it has formed an odd sense of symmetry, but I warn you, this is completely unintentional, and the chances of it lasting past the next actual comic is slim. So here we have the three of us, originally it was supposed to be if we were in Payday, but it kind of morphed into a Noir shooter, with the shadows behind us and action shot. I think the biggest casualty here was Harvey, we all developed super long legs in the process, but his stayed into the final print, I think they look alright though, and there was little that could be done.

Friday, 3 August 2012

And so we hit issue three, a prodigious event in world history, as it marks the time we have gotten really ahead of ourselves. Despite being our 4th published on this site, me and Helene have 3 other drawings at various levels of completion, one is even fully coloured, but isn't being released for super special continuity reasons. That is right, our little webcomic on the edge of the Internet has continuity, got to love what you do.

Thursday, 2 August 2012

Seth Macfarlene's got his fingers in a
lot of pies. From 'Family Guy' to 'American Dad', 'Cleveland Show'
and an upcoming 'Flintstones' reboot, the guy clearly knows how to
make products that everyone enjoys.

Personally I'm not a massive fan of his
stuff. Family Guy is good here and there, especially in the earlier
series, but for the most part it just seems like a cutaway ridden,
pop culture referencing husk that dickheads can quote and talk about
how “genius” the whole thing is. This was weirdly uttered by the dumbass who sat behind me in the theatre a noticeable amount of times so I could tell he was a long time fan. The rest of his stuff I won't
even give as good of a review as Family Guy, which even he is aware has gotten old so I'll leave you to
imagine what I think of the bulk of Macfarlene's work.

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

So here we have the second in our developing series of webcomics. WaC WeC, WaC WaC. Something like that, the name is a work in progress. As I speak we (Helene) is drawing the next one. Interestingly enough, I coloured this one, a far harder task than you imagine, there is reasons why comics like Megatokyo are done predominantly in black and white. The reason I was colouring is because soon she will be back in Denmark, with all my expensive equipment still in Britain, so basically, I had best work out how to use it.

C: After having a week or so to calm down, think through, and rampantly argue the ups and downs of the Dark Knight Rises, both by itself and in the light of the rest of the trilogy, we now find ourselves at the next logical step, a blog argument about it. Personally, I feel that what stopped DKR from being a suitable finish to a great trilogy was it's major shift away from both the Batman comic books, and the Batman himself, abandoning not only him, but also Bane and Catwoman in favour of superfluous 'real' characters like John Blake and John Daggett.

A long time ago I came to realize, as
I'm sure everyone began to notice, that characters in movies get away
with a lot of stuff. Most notably in action films, but even heading
into the romantic comedy genres, characters do amazingly stupid,
dangerous and ill thought out things and always live to the end of
the film.

So we dream to be like these people,
these great con artists who trick the world into thinking they're
heroes or competent as the screenplay works around them like a caring
hand, guiding them through to whichever tedious or mundane end game which they were always inevitably set to attain. The sad thing is however, that they are
and will always be better than you. You could never attain their prize, because I assure you, that if you were in their position you
would never make it to the end of the film.

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

Payday: The Heist by Overkill is one of those rare but
increasingly popular games that dare to imagine that PC gamers might have as
many as 3 friends capable of working together.
Despite being in the shadow of the masterful Left 4 Dead, it compares
quite favourably, having plenty of well executed ideas of its own, and now the
Overkill-Valve mating ritual has earnestly born offspring.

Click Image to Enlarge

More Written Below

Fresh from the newly opened Schulzman Animation Studio, currently it's only piece of work, the opening to the What About Cynics Web Comic. Currently in production is a 1st full comic, of a glorious six panel length. It should be uploaded fairly soon. So until then, here are the principle characters of the web comic. Us.

Click Image to Enlarge

From left to right, incidentally in order of gimpiness, Simon (Simon), Billy Bob (Harvey) and Chapman (Aaron, Me)

Monday, 30 July 2012

Recently I have started to become well
acquainted with bad TV channels. I only have basic Freeview and so in
a ditch effort to entertain myself have been forced to avoid all of
the major four channels as they insist on mentioning the Olympics at
the drop of a hat and venture deep into the hellish barren landscape
that exists past channel 5.